the passing of time

There is a mystery about time, what it really is scientifically and theologically. To us common folk it’s pretty simple and straightforward, and the older we get, the faster it seems to go.

I realize more and more that what I’ve taken for granted for so long will someday be gone. Hopefully not too soon, but all too soon enough.

This means that I can’t let the months and weeks and even days pass by without at least much thinking and more praying on what is really of first importance: relationships and what will last beyond my life as well as the present life and existence. To live poorly is to live with these on the shelf, or at best on the back burner. To begin to live well is to make these things a priority, indeed the priority of our lives.

It’s the gospel and what follows from that, the Jesus Creed. Jesus and what is laid out concerning him in his fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel for the world is the gospel. And to love God with all our being and doing along with loving our neighbor as ourselves are the heartbeat we’re to live by. The church in Jesus has a central place in all of this; it is not a helpful add on.

We need to measure our lives by this. And realize that another day may not come. And even if we do live a normal life span, that it will soon all be gone. A decade comes and goes fast enough. Decades become a lifetime.

And so with the psalmist in this “prayer of Moses” is the prayer we do well to pray in light of this: